New Feelings
by Kare Uta
Summary: Aching to be human, Bryan has the implants taken out of his brain to get his emotions back. Now he must settle into a new life, a new home, with a new friend, all while dealing with his new feelings and his old friend.BryanOC. Minor TalaOC.
1. Hospital Stay

_**New Feelings**_

_**Chapter 1**_

A waiting room is never really a cheerful place. It's always dull and quiet. Every waiting room is the same; white walls, white chairs, horrid childish posters over the walls and sometimes light music on in the background, not enough for it to actually be heard but just enough for the room not to be totally silent. Everyone in the waiting room were all distressed, panicky or just generally impatient.

All three were the feelings of Tala, Kai and the blonde girl that were all waiting at this time of the night. It had been four hours ago that Bryan had gone into surgery, a dangerous one at that and while they'd all been hopeful that he was going to survive, the two most negative people in the room were losing hope at an increasing speed. Tala wasn't much of a patient person, especially when it came to his best friend's life.

The surgery had been to take out all those implants that were keeping Bryan from feeling emotions. Tala had been the lucky one, his were more the kind that just wore off, Bryan's were built into his brain. After about two months of considering things, making a list of pros and cons, Bryan saw no harm in taking the surgery, deciding that life wasn't all that worth living if he could feel nothing for the rest of it.

"Would you stop tapping your foot like that?" The girl asked Tala sharply, "You're making _me_ nervous." She whispered softly, sitting down beside him.

"My watch stopped," Kai stated, having just looked at it to check the time again, "maybe it's some God trying to tell us something."

The girl rolled her eyes, "Yeah; He's telling you to take that watch to be repaired." She tried to glare at both when they looked at her a little defeated, "Besides, if someone died within the time I've been here then I'd feel something."

"I still don't know how this empathy of yours works but I hope you're right."

"You two have been really shaken up about his whole decision, what's wrong?" She looked at both Kai and Tala, coxing one of them to speak before she decided to pry further, "Kai, if you want yesterday's agreement to fall through then you have to tell me sometime or another."

_**--Flashback--**_

"_You rang, Kai?" She asked, raising her eyebrow at his pacing in the living room. _

"_I need to ask you for a favor." _

"_Shoot." _

_Kai sighed and sat down on the sofa, "I have to go back to Japan soon; I can't keep lying to my friend's about why I'm here, they think that I came to check on the mansion." _

"_And?" _

"_And I need you to look after Tala and Bryan for me. I want you to move in from the backyard house to this one so that you could be closer to them. I'll pay you to do the cooking and such things for them. You already did these things for me, I just ask that you do it for them now, and that you move in here instead." _

"_Of course I could do that but you don't need to pay me for it. I get paid just for keeping an eye on your house." _

"_But I want to pay you. Otherwise I'll just feel guilty for leaving them with you and for ditching you with the work." _

"_Cooking and keeping a place in order really isn't work for me, Kai, you know that." She sat down on the coffee table in front of him, resting her head in her hand with the thought that there was more. "It's more than that, isn't it?" _

"_I need you to help them. There really isn't anyone I think that's more suited than you for this." _

"_I can try but…" _

"_I know you'll manage." He cut her off, "Really, just do what you normally do and things will work out fine." He picked up an envelope from beside her and tossed it into her lap, waiting till she opened it and her eyes widened before explaining further, "It looks like a lot but it isn't. You need all that for groceries, clothes and whatever you need for the house. That's just for the next two months." _

"_You're really serious." She mumbled, thumb tracing through the bills in the envelope. _

"_I am. You have to look after them."_

"_I will." _

_**--End Flashback--**_

At least Kai had already spoken to Tala about it and so her comment hadn't come to all that much of a surprise to him. The two males exchanged glances, leaving her to sit there and raise her eyebrow at them, "So?"

"Concerns that this surgery might kill Bryan aside; we're worried that memories will also come with the emotions and we just think that we'd be a lot happier if some memories stayed at the back of his mind." Kai admitted, maybe just a little shameful once hearing him say that out loud, and to someone that wasn't a person in the Abbey.

She raised her eyebrows, pursing her lips and shrugging, "So?" she got two shocked expressions and so further explained her reason for 'so?' With a silent exhale, her features softened, "You're both here panicking about something that has not happened yet, something that may not even happen at all and you're already blowing things way out of proportion. If he doesn't get bad memories then that's great, if he does then he'll manage to deal with them. The reason he wanted to get the chance to feel emotions again is because he knows that out of the Abbey, it's the real world and in the real world, people without emotions are usually psychopaths and I definitely understand his concern with that but he wants to be human, like everyone else and that includes having bad memories."

"Most people have even a few happy memories though. Bryan has none." Tala reminded her sternly. "I have memories of my mom, she died when I was a baby but at least I know she was there and she loved me. Bryan's mom abandoned him, he knows it but he can't feel anything right now but when he's out of surgery he will."

The girl smirked suddenly, raising an eyebrow, "Right there." She whispered and pointed at him, "You said 'when' which means you don't really mean to be this negative and thinking that Bryan will die."

Tala turned red in the face; not quite sure if it was out of some embarrassment or if it were from anger. Still, he remained silent, tightening his arms across his chest and concentrating on the ground. Kai smirked at how the girl had put him in his place so easily; thinking that he had been right to ask her to take care of his two Russian friends.

The doctor showed up on the other side of the waiting room, walking over to them. Kai and Tala stood up and stepped forward so quickly they knocked the seventeen year old back into her seat, just allowing her to sit forward to listen.

"He's fine." The doctor stated hurriedly to ease their concern.

"Told you." The girl grumbled from behind Kai's back, hitting the small of his back lightly with the back of his hand.

"He's awake so you can see him now; he should remain awake for the next hour before he can rest."

"And how long will he be in here for?"

"Four days in the hospital, assuming things remain as good as they are; total recovery time will be about two weeks at the most."

Kai and Tala were not able to say anything so the honey blonde behind them pushed them aside slightly, standing up and smiling at the doctor, "Thank you."

He smiled back at her, nodding slightly, "The nurse at the desk will give you his room number."

He left them alone after that and she stood in between Kai and Tala, looking from one to the other, shaking her head, "How do you ever make it in this world with an attitude like that?" she sighed at the end of the statement, walking to the receptionists desk to ask for Bryan's room number so that they could see him, since she most definitely didn't trust Kai's social skills. "You two should go back home." She stated suddenly, turning to them.

"What?!" They asked in unison.

"Give me some time alone with him to get close to him. You both look exhausted, he could probably tell in a heartbeat that you were here the whole time; the last emotion you want him to feel first would be concern."

"I want to see him." Tala stated, determined.

"And he'll want to see you too," She smiled, putting a hand out to him and onto his forearm, "but let him realize he wants to see you first."

"Maybe she's right." Kai whispered in Tala's ear. The redhead in no way wanted to leave, especially since he was so close to seeing his friend again but Kai slowly began to pry the boy in the other direction, "Come on."

Waiting in the middle of the hallway, the girl remained there until they were completely out of sight before walking down the long hallways. She got to his room, the door was slightly open and dark inside. She knocked on the frame, "Don't do that." Bryan bit out through gritted teeth, holding his head even tighter.

"Sorry." The girl opened the door just a little further, slipping inside before closing the door so no light got in.

"Vera Volkova…" Bryan murmured softly at the realization, "The first face I actually recognize." Another wince of pain crossed his features and his body writhed uncomfortably beneath the covers.

"Well that's a good thing." The blonde smiled, "How are you feeling?"

"How about you give me some time to give these emotions a test drive before asking me something like that?"

"Fair enough." She laughed, stepping closer to the foot of the bed and picking up his chart, "It's probably a throbbing pain in your head; drugs can only do so much with the physical pain."

"While they were at it they should've just taken out my appendix, tonsils and any other unimportant organ; would probably save me a lot of trouble later."

Vera laughed at that, sitting down at the foot of the bed and still reading the chart, "By the looks of it you don't even have an appendix or tonsils for them to remove in the first place."

"Maybe I should be thankful for that."

Vera sighed and placed the chart back, whispered so quietly that Bryan probably couldn't even here her with the throbbing going on in his thick skull, "Yeah well Boris really did rob you of everything; your childhood, your innocence, your emotions, turns out your appendix and tonsils too."

"Where are…?"

"Kai and Tala?" She asked to save his strength, "I sent them home a while ago. They were getting so tired so I told them to just go home and that I'd call them when you were out of surgery. I could always call them to come see you if you'd like."

"No…" Bryan began hoarsely, turning over onto his side weakly, "no…leave them alone, they need to get some sleep. They shouldn't have been here in the first place, they didn't need to..."

"Hey, hey," Vera interrupted, putting a hand on his side hurriedly, "Let's not have you feeling self-loath just yet, shall we?"

"So if I can't sleep, what am I supposed to do for the next hour? I believe I'm feeling…boredom?" he raised his eyebrows and smirked, looking at her at the foot of his bed as much as his painful head would allow him to.

She moved to sit in a chair by his bed instead, that way he'd be able to look at her better and without arching his neck. She nodded in agreement, "Yeah, hospitals usually do inspire boredom." Murmured then shrugged a little bit, "Well hey, at least it hasn't inspired depression in you yet."

"Yeah, at least." He opened his eyes properly, looking at her while she stared at the ground, "I'm curious about something," he began hesitantly.

"What about?"

"How you and Kai met. He doesn't seem like the type that came across a girl and actually made conversation _and_ a friendship."

"You've got good instincts." She laughed, nodding, "You're right, it was nothing like that. Him and I were more like enemies."

"I never would've guessed." Bryan retorted sarcastically, still smirking even though the use of those muscles caused his head to only ache more.

"For starters, I've been living in that cottage at the back of Kai's yard since I was a baby."

"I thought you only moved there recently."

"No way; my mom worked for Kai's grandfather by maintaining the mansion. My mom passed away when I was ten from cancer and I've been living there ever since because…well because I didn't have any other place to go, and in all honesty I'm pretty sure that Kai's grandfather had forgotten I even existed." She exhaled heavily, "Then Kai came into control of the whole land since his grandfather was in prison and is going to stay there. I couldn't stand Kai and that obnoxious amount of self-confidence he had and he told me that if I were so sick of it then I should move out. Trying and trying, I got about three jobs all at once so that I could afford to leave."

"_You're in the way, poor girl." Kai informed, walking down the steps that Vera was sitting on. "Wow." He mumbled, despite the hot take away food in his mouth, "What are you wearing?" having noticed her in a neat pretty black dress and proper heals, as opposed to her usual jeans, shirt and jacket. He stood there, still biting down on his warm food, under the safety of the umbrella as she stood in the trickling rain. She stared at the food, a look of desire on her features as her stomach quietly grumbled at its scent. "Want to have some?" he asked, lifting the bag he had in his hand with the umbrella._

"It's just the way that he even offered things to a person. He just sounded so…full of himself and I hated that!"

"_No." _

"_Like I said, I'll help you with living expenses if you need it." He said, sitting against the railings._

"_It's okay."_

"He couldn't help but point out the obvious to me."

"_You're so stubborn." _

"_And you're so afraid of happiness." _

"_Is that what you are now? A follower of happiness?" He asked with fake interest. _

"_I believe you're avoiding it. It's not okay for people to give up happiness. Yet…you have quite easily given it up. You're not fighting, you're running away. It's because you find that it's much easier to hate." He sat up from the banister once again, turning to leave down the stairs now that she was out of his way but she ran up to him hurriedly, "No matter how painful it is, it's not okay to give up happiness."_

"_You really are one of __**them**__, aren't you?" _

"_Pardon?" She asked, confused by his reference. _

_He grit his teeth slightly, moving closer with his hot breath touching her skin as opposed to the cold wind, "People who think that Cinderella has a happy ending." He placed the umbrella carefully on her shoulder, bringing her hand up to wrap around the handle before he ran down the steps, "That's wonderful, that's wonderful." He repeated to himself. _

"What did Kai mean by 'people who think that Cinderella has a happy ending'?" he asked, just as confused as she probably had been in the beginning. "Maybe it'd help if I actually knew the whole Cinderella story, wouldn't it?"

"Cinderella and the prince got married and lived happily ever after." Vera repeated the final narration of the fairy-tale. "Everyone is satisfied with this ending, and thus, they shut the book. But ultimately they may not be able to get over the barrier of their status difference. The prince may have an affair. Their life begins after the story ends."

"Begins after it ends?" Bryan started to think that all this confusion was causing his head to hurt more but this story was good to keep his mind off the aches and pains in his body, his lack of knowledge on emotions, and good at keeping him awake.

"When something happens; let's say, when the culprit is caught, society will deem the case closed but to the victim, and to all the ones that are involved, they will continue to live on forever in this incident." For a long time she seemed held up in the story, only now did she look up at him with an actual sparkle in her eyes and a soft smile on her face, "Once I understood what he meant, and the two of us found some common ground, he told me that he'd improve his attitude toward me, on the condition I didn't give him a hard time about his emotions. After a little…cooking incident he had in his kitchen trying to make himself dinner, he was a lot nicer to me, but I think that was only because I was his only hope at a decent home-cooked meal from then on."

"_What were you even thinking trying to cook?" She asked him with a heavy sigh, tossing the burnt frying pan into the sink and opening the water faucet, the whole room starting to fill with smoke._

"_I almost always ate well when I was in this house; maybe I assumed my family were good cooks." _

"_Trust me, your family __**weren't**__ good cooks, they had good __**wallets**__ which helped __**hire**__ good cooks." _

Bryan laughed softly at that, especially with her facial expression that really backed up her statement, "You know, your laugh no longer sounds so…"

"Evil?" Bryan filled in the blanks for her, smiling to indicate that if she agreed then it wouldn't hurt his feelings.

She laughed as well, shaking her head and relaxing in her seat, "Maybe something like that." She watched that smile slowly fade from his features and her grin reduced to a kind smile, "We should stop talking for a while; this is taking a toll on your body."

"I need sleep…and yet I'm not allowed to have it. How unfair is that?"

"Do you want me to call a doctor? Maybe they can give you something for the pain…" She put her hands on the arms of chairs, gripping them tightly and preparing to stand.

"No, it's fine. It doesn't hurt too badly right now."

Vera sighed softly, settling back into the seat, "Well is there anything I can do for you? Get you something from the mansion or something to eat?"

"No, nothing." Bryan almost emitted a quiet laugh, trying to bite it back because he knew it hurt too much, "Maybe you should go home and rest too; if Tala and Kai got tired then you probably did too."

"I'm certainly not leaving though. I hear you've got a fear of hospitals."

"It's not a fear!" Bryan exclaimed, though sounding unsure at the end, "I don't think it is at least. It's just a great…distrust of hospitals."

The blonde teenager had to admit, she found his stubbornness quite adorable. Usually stubbornness angered her; Kai being a good example of that but with him she found it sweet, maybe because he was innocent and untrained when it came to emotions. The only reason he was stubborn was because he didn't want to label something an emotion he wasn't certain about. "I'm going to remain here, Kai and Tala will be here later and then I will go and get some sleep. Rest for a while…"

He shifted his body a few more times, trying to find a comfortable position. He watched the girl as she shut her eyes and bowed her head a bit, looking like she'd fall asleep at any moment too. He lay back, shutting his eyes slowly and in his mind quietly trying to assess each of the feelings that were overwhelming his weak heart.

Sadness was predominant in his heart and mind; he wanted to see his friends again. Having emotions was so confusing. Usually whether he did or didn't see his friends at a particular time didn't matter at all but right now there was a desperate feeling for them. Still, if they came back and were tired he may be concerned. While a part of him found it great that they gave up their time for him, he hated himself for allowing them to get so concerned about him.

"You're beginning to self-loath again." A voice broke through his thoughts.

"How do you know that?" he asked in a weak whisper, not caring to open his eyes to look at her, finding his mind growing hazy.

"Your face scrunches like that in distaste when you self-loath." She grabbed his hand carefully, giving him a fright and taking him by surprise; he was unable to hear quiet movements with all the throbbing going on in his head. She waited till he relaxed before squeezing his hand supportively, careful not to touch any of the I.Vs that he himself had been trying to keep his attention off of, "It must be difficult not to think about the emotions when you're feeling them all for the first times but if you try to evaluate each and every one now and by yourself then you're just going to confuse yourself." She brushed her thumb over his knuckles, "And probably give yourself a worse headache." She murmured with a silent laugh at the end. "An hour is almost up; you can allow yourself to sleep then."

_**--Three Days Later--**_

Kai sat around Bryan's hospital room, watching him sitting up in bed and holding his head between his knees, his palms pressing hard against his temples and his fingers clawing at his hair. The youngest probably felt like he was going to go insane but there was no point in trying to comfort him. At a time like this the youngest didn't want to be touched. He had been having lapses like these for the past day and a half. Once his body had overcome the pain of the surgery, all the emotions he could possibly feel began welling up in his chest.

Tala had gone to get Bryan some hot chocolate. They'd been told that coffee wouldn't be a good idea because it would make him more anxious but they'd discovered from experimentation that Bryan quite liked hot chocolate, and it did aid in putting him to sleep without medication. Some medication had been making Bryan ill lately, they weren't sure if it was an actual allergy to it or if it was his body that was just so nervous that he vomited any of it. Thankfully the redhead returned after little time, placing the hot chocolate on the nightstand. Last time he tried to hand it to Bryan the younger knocked it over when trying to reach for it and burnt his hand when it fell so they saw it as best to just wait for him to get it when he could calm himself.

Raising his head, he stared at the ceiling for a second, inhaling deeply before turning to the nightstand and picking up the cup. He drank shakily, shifting hands at time so that he didn't drop it or squeeze the cup too hard. That had been his latest bad habit; grabbing people too harshly. He had never really realized his strength in the past, but now whenever he hurt someone with that strength he actually felt a little bit upset about it.

"Well we can't say you weren't warned; the doctors did say this was going to be a huge transition for you." Tala mused aloud, exhaling heavily.

Bryan immediately took that wrongly and glared at his lifetime friend, "Is that supposed to make me feel better or something?"

"Sorry." Tala hadn't been the most gentle with him. He tended to be a little inconsiderate, possibly because he didn't know how the boy really felt. Tala was expected to be the person that would understand Bryan the most but he really didn't. Tala's effects of brainwashing just wore off really, Bryan's took a lot more work. He had a painful surgery to go through, and then needing to adjust to actually having feelings. Tala actually knew some feelings, being gifted with the chances to feel them once in a while in the past.

A head popped into the doorway, a bright smile on the pale features, "Evening…"

"Ouch! Don't do that!" Bryan grumbled, forcing his head deeper into the pillows, one hand going over his ear.

"I'm sorry," She apologized softly, closing the door behind her, "I take it things aren't any better."

"What tipped you off?" Kai asked, covering his mouth as he yawned, "He's been like this all day." He watched her sit at the foot of his bed, her head watching him intently as he got under the covers a little more. "And where have _you_ been all day?"

"The store in the morning and then I went grocery shopping. Your fridge was practically empty. Though while shopping I was sort of having to bite back the urge to buy streamers and balloons."

Tala smirked, "Why? Are we celebrating Bryan coming home with emotions?"

Vera shook her head, trying to hold back an unnecessary exhale, "No…we'd be celebrating Kai going back to Japan in two days. I never work harder than when he's here; talk about anal."

Kai put his hand in his glass, pulling out an ice cube and holding it out to her, "Look, Vera! I found your heart!" he exclaimed, a hint of bitterness in his tone.

"Oh goodie Kai," She clapped her hands, grinning with fake glee, "Melt it and we'll have your brain!"

"You're too loud." Bryan whispered, his foot under the covers gently coming in contact with the small of her back.

"Sorry sweetheart." She apologized, sounding really apologetic, putting her hand on his side in a kind gesture, "So what did you do here all day?"

Bryan shrugged, unable to bring himself to look at her, "Lay in bed, ate some awful-tasting green jelly,"

"Screamed and thrashed around in bed like a possessed person." Tala added casually.

Vera glared at him for a second, then turning to Bryan again, jerking her thumb in the redhead's direction and asking, "This is your best friend?" in a serious inquisitive tone, making the boy's body shake with a quiet laughter.

"Slow down on the laughing, Bry, we're still trying to get used to it here." Kai moved over to the window, peering out through the blinds at the snow falling out there.

"Hey, Kai, just 'cause you don't know a good joke and can't laugh, doesn't mean you have to ruin it for other people."

"Bite me, Vera."

The bickers between them went on and on for about another hour, Tala moved over to Bryan's bed and sat closer to him, the two watching the eldest Russian and the blonde seventeen-year old girl continue with their little arguments, sitting, watching and enjoying as though it were a movie. After all, what better things did they have to do in a hospital?

_**A/N: First chapter of my new fic! I told you I'd be quick in posting it. So this fic is getting me really excited since I have a lot of plans for it in the future and generally, I think it'll be quite interesting. I've worked out any flaws with my OC, and this was just the intro so people may not like her just yet but you all may or may not in the future. I've worked hard on this so let me know what you think and I'll get the next chapter up as soon as possible. **_


	2. Hell Sweet Hell

Chapter 2

_**Chapter 2**_

"So we put Bryan in his room for now. He can rest till dinner's ready." Kai announced to Vera, Tala following him close behind.

The blonde was chopping some vegetables at the kitchen counter, sighing, "Poor thing; he doesn't want to have to rest more than he has in the past few days."

"They're doctor's orders." Tala stated, sitting at the table, "He knows as well as we do that he could get really hurt if he doesn't rest enough. I'm not sure if he's brave or just really stupid; he had freedom from pain and feelings and he gave that up for feelings of misery."

"Not all feelings are miserable, Tala." Kai reminded.

"And I think he's brave." Vera added in a determined tone, "He took a risk with that surgery, he knew it could kill him or paralyze him but he still wanted to try, and going from having no emotions to eighteen years worth of them at once was a brave thing to do, he knew it'd hurt but he was determined to make things work for himself. Would you really be okay if you never felt anything, Tala?"

"Maybe you're right. But maybe this was the wrong time for him to be doing this; there's so much going on that he could get emotional about. It's only a matter of time before he starts getting back his memories of things that happened in the Abbey."

"But he may as well get them now while he's young when he can try to resolve any issues he has because of those things, than to grow up emotionless and then feel that life really has done nothing for you."

"Shockingly," Kai began, "I have to agree with Vera on this one. I think it's good that he decided he wanted to work on things him."

"Well someone pinch me, I must be dreaming. He actually agreed with me." Vera really did seem surprised by that, holding the knife down against the cutting board as she mused on what he'd just said. "There must be a miracle in the air." She said finally, going back to chopping.

Kai ignored her and her witty comments, turning to Tala to continue what he was saying, "Maybe Bryan is just braver than we are. He's doing something that we don't think _we_ could handle but we never know, he might actually get through this okay."

The honey-blonde sighed softly, never taking her eyes off the vegetables she was still chopping; she never quite understood just how negative Tala was, thinking that if she had to look after him with Kai gone, she wasn't sure what she'd do to him if he remained this negative, "I'm sure he will. He's trying to remain positive and he's determined as it is; let's not put him down by thinking he can't make it."

Tala was quite slowly understanding that sometimes speaking your mind wasn't the best thing to do, especially when you didn't agree with something. Just by her tone, he could tell that the young girl had disagreed with his negativity and so did as she asked and shut up on the subject from then. "So I need to ask, why do we always eat food here that has nothing to do with Russia?"

"Kai's been in Japan so long, he's seemingly decided he prefers Japanese food so when he's here I solely cook Japanese food." She was tossing all the vegetables into a pan and expertly tossing them about, Tala being able to tell that she had quite some experience in the kitchen, as opposed to his friend who just sat there and watched her make his dinner. "Besides, Japanese food is healthier anyway."

"And why do you know how to cook Japanese food?"

"Because I liked to read, and I liked to cook too, so I was bound to learn how eventually." She paused from stirring the rice, stepping away, falling back against the counter and placing her palm to her heart, wincing vaguely.

"Are you alright?"

She took her hand off her heart and eyed the food properly, turning to Kai, "Can I trust you not to burn the food for two minutes?" she watched him nod and she was about to walk out of the room but turned back to the food, shaking her head, "Am I mad?" she mumbled disbelievingly, taking the pots off the stove before departing. She jogged up the stairs, looking up and down the long hallway as she tried to remember which way Bryan's room was. Taking a left and going down about four doors, she knocked on the one she remembered was his before opening. "Is everything okay in here?" she asked, sounding desperate as she caught sight of the broken glass on the carpet.

Glaring eyes were raised at her, the fury in them not limited to frustration alone, "I can't take it anymore." Bryan mumbled through gritted teeth, "They're treating me like I'm ill and always telling me to rest but I can't just lie here doing nothing."

"So you pictured the glass as Kai and decided to break it?" She asked skeptically.

"It was an accident."

She nodded, kneeling down to pick up the shards of glass, "Just be more careful next time, this stuff is painful when it gets into skin."

"And yet you're picking it up with your bare hands." Bryan grumbled, getting on the ground to help her.

"That's because I know how to pick it up." She insisted gently, catching his hand before he went to touch it, "Just sit back and let me clean this up."

"What happened in here?" Tala asked from the doorway.

Vera looked up at him first, then going back to picking up the glass so she wouldn't have to look at him, "I needed to go to the bathroom. I thought that once I was up here that I should check on him, I guess I surprised him and he dropped the glass." She raised her eyes to Bryan's slightly, silently telling him to stick with the story.

"Okay then; just come downstairs soon, Kai's getting hungry."

"Tell him, 'him and everybody else.'" Vera retorted.

"Will do."

Bryan got closer once Tala disappeared from the room, 'bewildered' probably being the right word to describe him at the time. "It was _my_ fault, why didn't you just tell him the truth?!"

"You really wanted to tell him that you got so mad at the two of them that you pictured them as a glass and then threw it on the ground? Trust me, that'd just leave you with a lecture from Kai on anger management, he's one to talk."

"Then I guess I should say 'thank you'." He whispered back to that.

"It's fine sweetheart." She stood up, holding the glass in one hand and taking his with the other, "Come downstairs; I'll have dinner finished up soon so you might as well come downstairs from now." Looking back at Bryan he didn't seem to budge, he was a little hesitant. Maybe Kai had had an intimidating affect on him, or it may have even been shyness from her taking his hand like that. Unsure which it was, she let go of his hand slowly, "Come on, if Kai gets fussy I'll cover you." She smiled kindly, the kind of smile that would get anyone to rely on her.

Bryan began following her down the stairs, shielding his head once he heard Kai shouting at Vera to go and make dinner from the bottom of the stairs. He sat down on the step suddenly, holding his head in his hands as the loudness of Kai's voice kept ringing in his head. He wanted to yell at Kai to just shut the hell up but he couldn't make a sound. His hands pressed hard against his ears he heard voices reduced to whispers until a careful hand pulled one of his own off his ear. "Bryan, are you okay?" he nodded but neither her nor Kai, who had ran up the stairs to him, seemed all that convinced.

"I'm fine. Just go downstairs, I'll be there soon."

"But Bryan if…"

"Just go downstairs!" Bryan lashed out at Kai, causing his head to throb further.

Vera stood up, mostly out of surprise since the outburst was going to make her tumble back down the stairs, "Let's go downstairs, Kai."

The owner of the house couldn't help but grumble as he followed her down the stairs, glancing at Bryan's huddled up form from the bottom of the stairs before walking with her to the kitchen. "This is insane! He's bloody hormonal!"

"Well what do you expect, Kai? Hm?" Vera retorted angrily, truly fuming at Kai's lack of understanding, "First off, I think you're making him afraid of you because you're being such a bossy _idiot_. Next; you know this guy is so prone to headaches and you started yelling."

"He was meant to be in his room!"

"There you go! He wasn't _meant_ to be in his room, he's a human being, he has the right to walk around if he wants to."

Kai breathed out disbelievingly, "Not when he should be resting."

"He will rest when he needs to but you can't force him into it. He just doesn't have the patience to sit down and do nothing all day and believe it or not, there's nothing wrong with that."

Kai growled quietly and kicked the corner of the island counter, slamming his hand down onto the surface, "This is insane." He repeated quietly.

"He's bound to get emotional sometimes, Kai. He's got nothing in order right now, you have to have patience. If he decides he wants help then he'll come and get it, if he decides he wants us to leave him alone for a while then we have to do so. He's not sure of what he wants either so we give him what he thinks he wants so he can sort things out."

Up until now Tala had been sitting and watching quietly, having realized that getting in the way of these two arguing wouldn't have been the wisest thing he'd ever done. Now seeing a small hole in the argument and the fires were slowly dimming, he spoke up, making his presence known once again, "How long do you think he'll be like this for?"

"For however long it takes." Vera had a slight smile on her face, finding it funny to an extent that both Kai and Tala were so…stupid when it came to their friend's situation. "You're looking at all this as though it's some sort of mental illness or physical condition but it isn't. Keep in mind this can take however long it takes, rushing him and yelling at him isn't going to help." She'd gone back to cooking, that way being able to keep at least half her focus off them otherwise she was sure that she would say something she would regret later. "Give him a bit of time. If things don't work out well doing things my way then you can blame me, shun me, anything, but right now I think I know what I'm saying."

"Alright." Kai sighed, sitting at the table, feeling truly defeated.

"Kai!"

"What else do you want me to say, Tal? She's usually right about these sorts of things so who am I to argue with her here?!"

"This is my best friend you're trusting her with!" Tala argued breathlessly. "How do we know her way of doing things won't make him feel worse?"

"We don't but then you and I don't know any better either so for now, we stay out of her way." His words caused the boy to grumble, clearly still distrusting of her.

A second before Tala could argue back two plates were set down on the table, a gentle hand pushing one to each of them. "Have a nice meal." A hurt hushed tone said. Eyes followed her; she walked to the back of the room, picked up two plates of the home-cooked meal and exited the kitchen. Stepping out into the hallway she remained quiet, catching sight of Bryan still sitting at the top of the stairs, his chin perched onto his forearms. She ran up the stairs, handing him a plate before sitting down beside him, "Don't you want to go eat with your friends?" she asked, watching him ready to eat his dinner right there on the stairs.

"Not really." Eating seemed to be the last thing on his mind, but he knew the girl had gone through a lot of work and so ate a little bit at a time, trying to get his mind off the yelling and onto the food.

"Hopefully Kai won't give you so much trouble in the future. I asked him to try and calm down; all this yelling of his seems to be getting to you."

Bryan allowed his temple to connect with the wall gently, feeling his head getting too heavy for him to carry. "Why is it that you understand more than the people I've lived my whole life with?"

"You lived with some idiots." Vera smirked, though then realizing he didn't find it as funny as she did, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You might be right." He smiled softly, glancing at her as she ate quietly, "So why are you eating here?"

"I don't like to eat at the table with Kai." The blonde whispered softly, still eating the rice and chicken she'd prepared. "I liked eating alone outside; then he asked me to move in over here and I just don't feel right sitting at the table with him. If you're asking that so that I go away then all you have to do is tell me to leave you alone, you know?"

Bryan caught her forearm before she tried to get up to leave, trying to keep his hold lose so as not to hurt her; desperate to learn how to control his own strength. "No, that's not it. I just don't want you staying here if you can have better company."

Vera blinked, "It's just Kai, you know? He's not all that great and Tala? I don't know what to think about him but the moment Kai's gone I think I'm going to have trouble with him..."

"I don't want you to get into trouble with Kai for protecting me…"

She raised an eyebrow at him even though he was staring at the plate of food and couldn't see her, "Get into trouble? Kai _isn't_ my employer, even though it does seem that way. The moment he pisses me off too much then I'm out of here; there's no way I can really get into trouble with him. If anything, if he pisses me off, _he'd_ be the one in trouble because then he's got no one to cook for him!" It made the boy laugh softly, she found him so innocent when he laughed like that, it was as though he wasn't sure what he was capable of yet.

He waited patiently until she was finished with her dinner before ceasing to eat his own anymore. He handed the plate back to her, still half fool, giving her a slightly apologetic smile, "Sorry I couldn't eat more."

"That's alright. I wasn't sure how much you could handle anyway." She took the plate and stood up, "Go up to bed, try to relax, I'll get your medication soon."

Bryan couldn't help but think that she was so much like Kai in a way. She was ordering him around at times but she did in such a gentle way, in such a way that gave him his pride and freedom that he didn't care. In any case, he waited till she left down the stairs and hallway before attempting to bring his limbs to move his body from the wooden staircase. He wavered all the way to his bedroom, unable to even keep his aching head upright. It felt like someone had bashed his head in with a brick by now and it was quite easy for him to conclude that that was a very painful feeling.

He sat around his bathroom; it was almost 8:30 and wasn't able to bring himself to have a shower at that hour and so just changed into black trousers and a t-shirt for bed, briefly splashing cold water onto his flushed face before going to lie on his bed where he was sure he couldn't feel anymore dizziness. There was a soft knock on his bedroom door a few minutes after he settled down against the sheets and he remembered about his medication once again. "Come in."

The door opened slowly and instead of Vera showing up, it was Kai at the door with Vera only showing up behind him. "What do you want?"

"He said he wanted to apologize." She defended. She hit Kai's shoulder, and glared at his back, "So? Apologize."

Kai walked over to Bryan, setting a small plate of his pills down on the nightstand before making himself comfortable at the foot of the bed. He turned to Vera who'd made herself comfortable leaning against the wall with crossed arms, "Are you going to stand there the whole time?"

"Yes." She smiled, just to further irritate him with her innocently-toned answer.

Kai huffed with frustration; what could he really do? He'd invited her into his home and now she had free will. He turned to Bryan who was sitting there, staring at the mattress and probably still waiting for an apology. "Bry, I'm sorry, alright? I didn't realize you were down there and that's no excuse to have yelled because I told you to treat this place like your home and I shouldn't have ordered you to stay in your room like that. I was just worried about you and your health right now…"

"You're wasting your breath." Bryan whispered, lilac eyes staring up at him unexpectedly, "Because you're apologizing for something I know you'd do all over again and something that'd probably happen again."

"I'm still sorry, Bryan and if it'd save hurting you then I'm going to try not to do this again."

"Alright." Bryan shrugged gently, picking up the bottle of water from his nightstand and starting to swallow each of the pills. It gave him a reason to ignore Kai, the eldest Russian leaving the bedroom with a shrug of his own by the third pill. Vera continued to stand in the doorway and watch him, he assumed it was to make sure he took all of his pills but she remained there even when he finished and was contemplating getting under the covers to sleep.

"Are you feeling okay?" When he opened his eyes she was kneeling by his bedside, watching him with something like concern gleaming in her eyes. Or so he thought that was the emotion.

"I'm okay."

She got back up, reaching over to the sheets and pulling them out from underneath him to put over him instead, "Try to get some sleep. Tala told you to wake him if something happens and that offer stands with me too." She could see the drowsy effect the medication was having on him already; she was the one who sorted his medication out, and being someone who was more into the natural stuff she probably took a good look at what she was giving him and having known he'd grow to be this tired. "Good night."

The lights went out and he was left with pure silent darkness. No light even entered from the window as Kai had drawn them shut earlier in the day when the light was giving him a migraine. There was maybe just a hint of moonlight that was brightening the curtain just a bit, at least allowing him to give the room some sort of definition. The silence made him ill further; he didn't like noise, what with his head hurting so badly and all, but the complete and utter silence made him feel so alone and abandoned. He knew that wasn't really the case but it still didn't stop him from feeling that way.

After having closed the door Vera quietly made her way down the stairs again, ready to finish cleaning up the kitchen of the dirty dishes. She almost immediately went to the sink, though seeing Kai holding onto Tala's shoulder strongly while uncomfortable winces passed over the younger's face. "What's the matter in here?"

"Tala's got an upset stomach." Kai announced.

She sighed softly, tossing dirty dishes into the sink, "Maybe he thinks that I poisoned him."

"Vera, this is serious. He's really not feeling well!" He pulled up a chair closer to Tala but the boy immediately stood up and dubbed over against the table, "Isn't there something you could do?"

The blonde shrugged, scrubbing dishes, "Not really; he doesn't trust me so how can I help? In case you've forgotten, Kai; my whole line of work has to do with trust."

"It's not that I don't trust you!" Tala growled, still overwhelmed by the feeling in his stomach.

"And you say that _now_; when your stomach is hurting so bad that in a few minutes you'd probably need an exorcist."

Kai finally let go of his friend and stalked up to his new tenant, spinning her around and ignoring the cracking sound that the dish made when it fell back into the sink, "I'm serious. If you know something then I suggest you help out now."

"Or what?" She got onto her tiptoes to be able to reach him, smirking with her lips just inches from his. He didn't know what else to say and thus her smirk grew wider, "The look of defeat is answer enough." She wiped her soapy hands in a dishcloth while making her way over to the huddled up form of the redhead and pushing him back into a chair, "I can take a good guess. What did you eat while in the Abbey?"

"Meat…always meat; chicken some days, steak on others. I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"You went from a no-carb diet, to one with over five hundred in a heartbeat. It's bound to unsettle the stomach." She walked over to one of the cabinets and pulled down a basket that Kai kept all the medication in and began sorting through it. The two males watched her with some interest, Tala keeping a good hold on the table and his stomach so as not to fall. She dropped a tablet into a glass of water, sliding it across the table and closer to him once it started fizzing, "Drink that. You'll feel better in about ten minutes."

Tala tried to sit back down, Kai staying close as he tried to sip the drink, "What is it?" he asked, staring at the drink with a look of disgust.

"Are you going to question it too?"

"No, I was just asking."

She'd finished up the dishes already since there wasn't all that much to do. She'd gotten into the habit of cleaning pots, pans and dishes the moment she stopped using them in order to save herself the extra load of work. "Well, when you learn to be a little more grateful towards me _then_ you can ask." She picked her backpack off the ground by the backdoor, swinging it over her shoulder, "I've had a long day; I'm going to go get some sleep. If the stomach ache persists then come and wake me and I'll see what I can do. Good night."

"How is she so good at this sort of stuff?" Tala asked once she was out of hearing-distance.

"She was always like this. She believes in natural remedies, everything to do with the Earth and general health. Her store, 'Good Earth', is all about that. She's usually really good at her job too, she knew I was coming down with the flu just before the symptoms hit, I didn't believe her and went to a doctor and it turned out she was right."

"All three of us are the type that hate chemicals running through our bodies, so can this girl and her ways be anymore perfect?"

"She's far from perfect, trust me."

Tala sat back in his seat, taking a long deep breath, "This stuff is working." He sighed softly and placed the glass back down onto the kitchen table, "So what else is she capable of?"

"Mentally, she's strong but despite her health, she's physically weak. She goes to great extents to help a person but she's a strong believer in riddles and so usually teaches someone a lesson by using them. Really and truly she'd help a person with anything, though don't expect her help with everything; she can't solve problems that don't require the use of the mind."

"Sounds promising." Tala murmured.

Kai sighed softly, though yawning a moment later, "She _is_ so even if you don't like her, just pretend that you do; she's doing me a lot of favors here."

"And tell me again…why do you need her to do favors for you?"

"Because someone needs to keep an eye on my house." Kai reprimanded through grit teeth. "And someone needs to take care of you and Bryan. You two deserve a better environment and she can do that; she's good at cooking, she's good at keep the place tidy, she's generally mother-like and it'd do you both some good."

Tala rolled his eyes, "Living with some girl isn't going to make things better, Kai. You're delusional."

"Be patient. You'll see." Kai stood back up, pulling the boy up a little by his arms, "Come on, you need to get some sleep and so do I. I've got packing to do in the morning."

"I still can't believe you're leaving us with that nutcase." He sighed, walking out of the kitchen and up the stairs, with Kai grumbling quietly close behind.

_**A/N: Another dear chapter! I started working on the next one already so don't fear! I'll have another chapter up in a few days hopefully. Please leave a review and I'll update as soon as possible. **_


	3. Left Alone

_**Chapter 3**_

_**--Next Morning--**_

In the past getting out of bed was never really a problem. The 'beds' in the Abbey, which were more like worn out mattresses on the stone ground, were truly uncomfortable and naturally nobody really wanted to spend more time than they had to in them. In the beginning Kai had joked quite a bit about how his friend's lifestyles were going to change but originally Bryan hadn't realized how serious he was about that until he spent days sleeping in a more comfortable bed.

The bed was soft, but just tough enough not to hurt his back further. It was always clean and tidy, the sheets thick and pure white as opposed to the skimpy dirty ripped sheet he'd used in the Abbey that had begun to go grey with age. Every morning he had to turn over a few times, to take a good look at his surroundings and to go over why he was in such a comfortable bed. After that quick reflection, Bryan would lie around in bed, contemplating how lazy he must be to be unable to move for a long period of time since waking.

He'd never considered himself lazy; he overworked himself every day, slept for the required five hours that the Abbey permit them and then got up without hesitation, despite any of his aches, pains, tiredness or anything else.

After about an hour of tossing in the silent bedroom he was able to knock his whole body right out of the bed. Quite literally. Walking around his bedroom proved difficult but within the next half hour he'd had a good shower, changed into some warm clothing and went downstairs to find some of his new housemates. The whole house was silent, from the hallway upstairs to the living room downstairs. It had taken him at least two years to get used to the floor plans of the Abbey, and figured things would be same with Kai's mansion, only knowing which way to go because he heard the silent chatter of conversation and the sizzling of food in a pan, including the enticing smell of whatever it was that was being cooked today.

"Good morning, sunshine." Vera greeted happily, having noticed him appear in the doorway. "What do you want for breakfast?"

Bryan hadn't checked his clock in his bedroom when he'd woken up that morning, thus not knowing what time it was when he'd awoken but hoping desperately that someone was still making breakfast or that there was at least something to eat. "Anything's fine with me." And it was; he never got breakfast in the Abbey so actually being given an option was strange and so naturally, he wasn't picky about it so took whatever he could get. He sat down at the table, not sure what to do while Tala picked through his food and Kai read the paper while eating his breakfast.

"Did you sleep well?" Vera asked, trying to save him from the awkwardness of the silence that Kai and Tala had seemed to graciously bestow on them that morning.

"Yeah." He didn't want the room to be dull and silent but he didn't think that that question was a way of making conversation and thus answered bluntly like he normally would've.

From behind him where she couldn't be seen she shrugged a little, assuming he was like Kai and would prefer to avoid conversation. She finished up on making a typical English breakfast, placing it down on the table in front of him, taking him by surprise momentarily. "So is everyone okay here?" She asked, looking at each of the three males at the table.

"Yeah," Kai nodded, glancing up at her, "thanks."

"Alright. So I'm off to work." She walked over to the door, picked up her bag and waited to exit, "Bye, guys." Her farewell had gone by unnoticed by the males, except for a slight glance from Bryan. There was just a tinge of pain in her heart; she kept trying to be nice to all of them, treating them kindly even though she rarely did so to absolute strangers and yet they couldn't even be bothered to say bye to her when she left home.

The youngest was half-way through his food before he glanced up at his two friends who were still quiet; Tala had gotten up by now, putting his plate in the sink. "Why is everyone being so silent?" he asked suddenly, gaining both their attention.

Kai looked up from the paper he was reading, a little startled by the outburst, "I didn't want to give you a headache or something." He shrugged indifferently.

"It doesn't mean that you can't say _anything_." Bryan felt like he was going to collapse again from pressure in his skull and those raging emotions beating in his chest.

"Sorry, Bry." Kai relaxed, letting go of everything he was doing or thinking to focus his attention on his friend, "Are you alright, Bry? You look like…"

"What now, Kai?" Bryan asked, mumbling as he stood up and walked out of the room. He couldn't take this right now. Worst of all…he didn't know why. He sat around his room; trying to think about it, trying to come up with a solid answer for all his questions of why his emotions were so out of control lately. It was a simple and obvious one; he wasn't used to them yet. But how else was he supposed to deal with them, other than to act out on them in whatever way seemed appropriate? But right now, what was appropriate? How was he supposed to act? Who was going to help him to find out which way he was meant to act? Kai knew the most about it, yet he made no show in wanting to help him with it. And Tala…Tala only knew a bit more than he did but at least he knew something, right? So if these people were his friends then why didn't they try to help him at all? Was he so beyond repair that they didn't bother?

Sitting in his room was irritating, he wasn't sure if he wanted to tear his pillows and blankets or smash the glass of his window but whatever it was he knew he was going to suffocate if he stayed in there for much longer. There was little he could do but he _needed_ a walk, he _needed_ fresh air, he _needed_ to think.

_**--Two Days Later--**_

The days just continued like that for a while. To some extent it was a good thing to have Kai out of the country again. He couldn't handle the stress that Kai was avoiding trying to help him. He always said he was so then why didn't Bryan feel like he was getting help? He felt alone, completely alone and all thanks to him.

Tala was quiet. Always quiet. He'd sit around his bedroom, or in the living room, just reading a book or watching a movie. Other times he'd go out into the backyard and try to practice his blading, desperate to remain sharp in skill but the weather didn't always permit it and other times Vera nagged him about how his health could be affected from being exposed to the cold like that. He still considered her a nag, and despite helping him a few days earlier he found that he still couldn't trust her as much as he'd been told that he could. Thus, he sometimes listened to her health lectures and other times just right out ignored her.

Vera wasn't on bad terms with Bryan though. The two had just a mutual understanding between them. She checked on him on occasions, he'd reply gratefully that he was okay. He never gave her any trouble; meaning he was never all that honest with her whenever it came to his out-of-control emotions. She had asked him to inform her of any aching or bruising he got but as usual he kept that sort of information to himself. They were friendly though, they spoke to each other when they passed each other in the hallway, she passed by his room to say goodnight every evening, she was accurate in giving him the right amount of food so as Tala wouldn't get on his case about not eating enough when the plate still had a lot of food in it too.

Before Kai left for Japan he showed Bryan the way to Vera's store in case he ever needed anything. Some afternoons Bryan wanted to use that information to his advantage and go to see her; just because he didn't want to sit around the mansion doing nothing and talking to no one. He got used to going for walks every afternoon for at least an hour. It served him well to get some fresh air and take in more of the scenery of Moscow. It would only take one change in street to get him to Vera's store and so it was always quite tempting when he was on the way home.

It had been about eight days since he'd had his surgery and the temptation to talk to someone about what was going on with him was growing stronger by the minute. He chose to go to her store today. Not because he was going to open up to her about his feelings or something but he wanted to do something new and wanted to see what her store was like in general. He arrived at the door, taking advantage of the fact that she couldn't see him from where she stood and so he tried to pull himself together to go inside. Pushing the door open, the bell at the top rang and startled him a bit. It alerted her to the guest and got Bryan's cheeks burning slightly at the attention.

She smiled widely at the sight, leaning forward against the counter, "Finally, a more familiar face." He remained silent even to her sweet statement and he just looked around at the dark green shelves which was stocked with probably every herbal remedy in the books. "So what brings you by?"

He snapped his attention back to her; the first thing she'd said wasn't a question, so there was simply no reason to greet it with an answer but now it _was_ a question, and he _wanted_ to say something. "I was out for another walk, it was getting cold so…"

"You thought you'd come in here for some warmth." She finished for him with a smirk.

Bryan stood there and nodded slightly. Excuses, excuses. Lies and lies. Couldn't he just say the truth and say that he didn't want to be alone for the afternoon?

She laughed softly, waved for him to follow her into the back room, "Come on, I'll make you some tea."

He followed her inside where there was a choice of two rooms. The first one had pale blue painted walls, a hospital bed, candles, oils; suddenly he wasn't quite sure where he was anymore. The next room was closed but she switched the light on and pushed open the door to reveal the small office, the counter to the far side of the room with everything she needed to make him some tea. The rooms weren't all that important, but there was a large contrast between each and mostly ended up serving to distract him. Her fingers hooked gently beneath the collar of his jacket, alerting him to the fact that it was still icy and soaked and shrugged it off him, watching her as she put it on a chair by the fireplace.

"I told you it was going to be cold out today. Why'd you go for a walk anyway?"

"Because it's _always_ cold in Russia." He reminded, crouching in front of the fire and ghosting his hand over it.

"You know what I mean!" she laughed, looking back at him for a moment. "The cold never really bothered you in the past because you could barely feel it. You've got to remember you're not invincible anymore."

"It's still settling in." Bryan grumbled quietly, without the intention of letting her hear him. She handed him the cup of tea and smiled kindly, sitting down beside him with her own tea, "Is it alright for you to leave the store unattended?" he asked confusedly as she got comfortable on the ground.

"Yeah; I'd hear the door if someone came in. I've got no appointments today and its going to be slow what with the weather and all. No one's insane enough to willingly go out in this weather." Then eyeing him as he raised his eyebrow at her and her statement, "Except you, of course."

"And even _with_ emotions, I'm still different from the majority."

The honey-blonde smiled softly, reaching out and brushing a lock of hair away from his eyes, "You'll get used to them." He remained silent and stared into the fire so she tilted her head a bit so he could see her more, "So what's the problem?"

"Knowing what the hell I'm feeling for starters."

"Sweetheart, I'm not psychic here, you need to elaborate a bit."

Why was he even saying anything to her? Had he really given up all hope on Tala helping him already? Did he really have to resort to the help of a stranger?

"I want to know a lot of things. Like…why I feel like I'm angry at Tala and Kai for starters."

"And here I was told that anger was the one emotion you knew well."

"Hence my problem here." Bryan groaned.

Vera exhaled softly, smiling and touching him lightly so he'd look back at her, "Look; Kai doesn't talk, Kai doesn't listen, but he _does_ care about you." She sounded kind at first then sighing as she sat back, "He surely isn't the type to show it but he _does_ feel that way."

Bryan glared faintly, "How do you know that's what I'm mad about?"

She shrugged indifferently, "I took a wild guess. Besides, what else do you have to be mad at him about?"

Sighing, he took another sip of tea while thinking about what she'd said. "You should've become a stupid shrink." He stated finally.

She laughed softly, nodding and staring into her teacup, "I considered it but then I realized that I'd most likely be called 'stupid' a lot."

"That's true."

"So," She started in a hushed tone, "why are you talking to me about this?"

She asked bluntly and, honestly, it caused his insides to burn and the red on his face to grow further. At least the red tinge on his cheeks could be passed off as the heat from the fire but the acid in his stomach was killing him. What was he supposed to say? "I'm bothering you with this, aren't I?"

"No…no, not at all." She reached a hand out to him again and putting it on his muscular arm, "I'm asking in relation to this problem of yours. What got you to want to talk to me? You've got as many trust issues as Kai…it's the reason I asked."

"He said I could trust you." He shrugged.

The teenager smiled wider, pointing lightly with her index finger, "If you were that mad at him then you wouldn't have believed him and listened to him."

"Are you _always_ like this?" He asked skeptically, "Making someone give you the final evidence that you're right?"

She took his teacup from him and stood up, "Not always." She giggled, moving over to the counter and making more tea. "And this thing about Tala…I think he's still trying to adjust to this whole 'new life' thing. Kai made it sound a lot scarier than it is. He probably just doesn't want to give someone he cares about advice when he can't even help himself."

"How do you _know_ this stuff?"

She walked back to him, sitting on the ground and handing him the cup of tea, "In case you haven't noticed, nobody in that house talks to me, ever. So I just learn about them by observing."

He raised an eyebrow at her reason; can a person actually do that? "So you've summed all this up over what has happened in the past few days?"

"Well why not? You can learn a lot about a person just by looking at them."

Bryan relaxed against the frame of the fireplace, staring into the cup again. The girl noticed him in deep thought and so just let him continue with them, he was staring reflectively and so she figured it must be something important or something he wanted to talk about, thus letting him collect his thoughts in peace. After a few quiet moments of sitting there she got up to fetch a pen and her diary, then settling back down on the ground.

"What are you doing?" The Russian male asked.

"Trying to think of what I'm going to cook for dinner." She looked up at him as she replied. She smiled and turned to look back down at her diary, "Don't get paranoid; I'm not taking notes or anything."

"I didn't think that."

"Then what are you thinking about?" She asked absentmindedly.

"You tell me." He retorted.

She raised her eyebrows but not raising her eyes to look at him, "Again, I'm not psychic."

Bryan shook his head and exhaled heavily, "I don't know about that," he disagreed with determination, "you've been pretty damn accurate about everything so far."

"I'll take _that_ as a compliment." She looked up again, giving that soft honest smile again, "Stop stressing yourself out so much. And frowning too. Remember, you're human, you'll get wrinkles." The boy still didn't say anything to that, just staring into the fire again without thinking much about what she'd said, "You know what you need?"

He groaned and sighed, shutting his eyes, "Tell me."

"Books." She said, one word.

"Books?" He asked, unbelievingly, raising an eyebrow at her, "How are books going to help me?"

"Novels, to be precise. They're meaningful, they're filled with emotions, and some have very good descriptions of emotions too. They'll help you; at least to be able to assess each of your own emotions and learn about others."

"You actually think that'd work?"

"Why shouldn't it? It can help you sort out some emotions, teach you what each emotion is called, a bit about how it feels; should make sorting them out a bit easier later on if you at least know what they are." He went back to being silent and her patience with that was beginning to run thin, though keeping in mind that he just couldn't react to everything she said normally. She stood up and put her hands out to him, "Get up, we're going to the bookstore."

He grumbled quietly, sighing and standing up, placing the teacup in the sink. "You shouldn't just leave your work to take me book shopping you know."

"I'm not doing anything else." She tossed him his jacket and picked up her own before putting out the fire.

If there was anything that Bryan had learnt he disliked within the past week, it was people who went out of their way to do things for him. He was happy with the little things they did because they enjoyed it or because they cared, but hated it if they had something else to do and gave it up to do something for him. Unfortunately for him it seems to be the trait this girl had become known for.

The trip to the bookstore was rather long and painful considering the extreme cold. Walking around the bookstore without being certain what you were looking for was even more painful under the even stares of the shop attendants that were even colder than the Russian winter. What book do you buy for the person who doesn't have any preferences or opinions yet? After about a half hour of looking around, Bryan had long given up on finding anything interesting so he just told her to pick something for him. She picked up a few things for herself too so she said they could always exchange if he didn't like what she picked out for him.

The two finally got home after an extra hour of battling the cold weather, arriving just in time because a thunderstorm broke out. Vera went straight to cooking dinner, having still been undecided on what to cook and Bryan went up to his bedroom to try to read a book.

She went to get the two of them down for dinner but Tala was sound asleep, there was no way she was going to sit alone at table with Bryan so just took his food up to him and let him eat by myself.

After an overseas call to Kai to let him know that things were going well with everyone, Vera wished Bryan good night, checked on Tala and then went to bed. Of course, not forgetting to watch him take his medication first; Bryan had assumed by now that Kai had told her that he was always one to skip out on those things if he was able to.

Four in the morning struck and Bryan couldn't bring himself to go back to sleep. His bedroom was warm and it was beginning to get to him. He'd woken up flushed and overheated, he needed a walk around a cooler area. Since the heaters in the rest of the house would've been turned off before Vera went to bed, he decided a quick walk around the cooler ground floor would do him some good in cooling him off, though hopefully not making him ill.

Passing through the living room some heating was resonating from the kitchen; thinking that Vera left a heater on, he went in to switch it off. Stopping in the doorway when he realized she was in there he was thinking of backing away and pretending he hadn't seen her. She'd surely make a fuss that he was awake but then it dawned on him that he'd also have the incentive to ask her what she was doing awake. She was sitting forward against the table, browsing through pages on her laptop and occasionally typing slowly and one-handed while her other hand was to her mouth. "You bite your nails." He announced drowsily, walking into the kitchen.

She seemed startled, having been all too caught up in whatever she was doing. She looked up at him, blinking till her eyesight adjusted from the bright light of her screen to the darkness that Bryan was surrounded by, "Yeah, I know, filthy habit." She put her thumb down from her mouth, then shaking her head, "What are you doing awake at this hour?"

"I'd ask you the same question."

Vera stuttered, trying to find her words before pointing at the computer screen, "I forgot…I had work to do."

"Anything interesting?" he asked, stretching slightly as he sat down in the seat beside her.

"Not at all." She murmured, shutting her laptop. "So why are _you_ awake?"

"_Aside_ from not being able to sleep?" He asked with a smirk.

"Something's got to be keeping you awake."

"I think it was just the heat. I thought I'd take a quick walk around the place to cool off before going back to sleep."

Vera smiled and stood up, pushing her chair back in and tucking her laptop under her arm. "You've just alerted me to the time. I'm going up to get some sleep; cool off and then go and get some sleep of your own." Her hand ran along her back carefully as she walked past him and out of the kitchen, switching the heater off on the way out.

Bryan was maybe just a little bit upset that he didn't have the chance to talk to her further. For some reason, deep down, the way she generally acted angered him a bit, but in no way did he think she was a bad person for doing things the way she did. After all, it was always better than the way he was doing things; which was getting mad at everything he didn't understand or didn't want to think about.

He got up and took a brief walk around the living room, looking outside as the snow fell against the windowpane. The weather was getting worse; at this rate there was a chance Vera couldn't even make it to work tomorrow and he couldn't get out of the house to practice. They were going to get stuck in the house all together for at least a day. That hadn't happened yet without Kai…

He pressed his finger to the window and wiped off the icy water that had rested there. It actually felt cold to him now. To some extent it actually hurt to touch something so cold. Maybe it was the way he felt to some people. Maybe he was cold, and maybe he hurt them. It was the reason he wanted to change that person, he didn't want to feel cold and to hurt other people. What good would that do him?

Contemplating on such things was always painful, and in a tired state, who thinks clearly? Unfortunately for him he's always thought the most clearly at the times when it was least appropriate. Unwillingly he dragged his body back up the stairs, taking a look around the dark second story before going back to his room and slipping into his warm bed.

He'd at least discovered some safety. His bed didn't betray him. Lying in bed contained the moments where he relaxed, where he tried to let nothing bother him and when they did, he kept in mind that due to the extreme comfort he was in while in bed, his tense body would eventually melt into a relaxed soothing sleep where thoughts weren't tainted with bitter memories. Though with that in mind, for how long will everything remain untainted? Does that mean that the more he learns about himself and his life, will aspire nightmares? Will learning more bring him hope or just the ashamed feeling of defeat?

_**A/N: Another chapter. Not sure if I should even continue writing this fic though since it's going so poorly and definitely not some of my best work. I went from getting four reviews to two. Ah well, if you read this chapter, just please leave a review and let me know what you think. Thoughts are welcome. Take care everyone! **_


	4. Beginning Of Explanations

_**Chapter 4**_

_**--Next Morning--**_

Both Tala and Bryan had been walking down the hall leisurely until they'd heard a loud ringing sound coming from the kitchen. Bryan was the first there, running down the stairs, watching Vera fuming and cursing so badly he hadn't heard such bad language since Boris when Tala lost the tournament. "What's that sound?!"

"The damn fire alarm!" She yelled, putting her hands to her face.

"So there's a fire?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Do you _see_ a fire?!" She asked irritably, raising her face from her hands and glaring furiously.

"So why is it ringing?"

"Because it's like living with a psychiatric patient! It's on edge all the time. All you have to do is walk past it and it'll start screaming at you. All I did was burn a piece of toast! A damn piece of toast!"

Tala rolled his eyes at the extent at which she was raising her voice pointlessly, "So just switch it off!" he shouted back.

"I can't! I need to get up there to switch it off but I'm too short even if I stand on the chair," she indicated to the chair she'd dragged from the table to just beneath the alarm, "so I went to get the ladder from the storeroom but its hanging on the wall which is stupid because if I could reach that height I wouldn't need the damn thing in the first place!"

By the time Vera had stopped her rant the annoying ear-piercing scream of the alarm had finally ceased. Looking back and up, she saw Bryan breaking apart the alarm with a kitchen knife. When he got down he placed all the pieces of the broken alarm and the knife down onto the counter, leaving just two wires sticking out of the ceiling. "Problem solved." He murmured to himself with a sigh. He smirked at the dumbfounded look on her face when he turned to her, placing a hand on the small of her back as he walked past her again, "Feeling better?" he asked.

"A lot…thank you." She sighed, ramming her hands against the kitchen counter, "I keep telling Kai to fix that thing. It doesn't need to be that sensitive when I'm the one that's cooking; when he's cooking then yes, the most sensitive the better but I'm the one that's cooking now and he just insists on not fixing it. I should've just bugged him until he did it."

"Well you can relax now; it's not going to bother you and your cooking again." Bryan picked up a tiny broken piece and showed it to her, "See? It's not going to be screaming like that again."

"I know." She murmured quietly. She stood up straight, taking a deep breath before taking a look around the kitchen, "Right; got to finish breakfast." She continued to tell herself softly.

Tala went over to her and caught her hand as she began to continue making their breakfast, "You don't need to make us breakfast everyday. Haven't you stressed yourself out enough this morning?"

"No, it's fine; cooking will calm me down." She insisted, pulling out of his grip and continuing her work. The two males sat at the table, Tala was pretending to read the newspaper; it had fallen through the mailbox just as he'd been coming down the stairs. He couldn't quite help but look up whenever the young girl would start cursing or sighing when something went wrong. Bryan had his arms crossed on the table and just rested his head on them, his head turned to the side so that he could watch her the whole time. She certainly was uptight today. Lack of sleep, he assumed; though he couldn't quite recall ever being this uptight whenever he lacked sleep but he assumed that he just wasn't used to receiving more than he needed. Receiving any at all certainly was a privilege though, so he wasn't complaining, not even to himself.

Breakfast was prepared and set in front of them within the next twenty-five minutes. Both men were thankful for this as they were starving but the girl left without another word about a minute after she had cleaned up all the pots and pans. "She's so uptight today." Bryan murmured to his friend; to some point hoping to make conversation, though sadly at his new friend's expense.

"Yeah," Tala nodded, "What do you think it is?"

"Not enough sleep maybe."

"You think so?"

Bryan shrugged slightly, still poking the fork through the remainder of his food; Vera really was stressed out as she'd given him a lot more food than she knew he would eat. "She was still awake at four this morning."

The redhead placed his fork down onto his plate, raising an eyebrow, "And how do you know that?"

He shrugged again, "I needed a drink." He lied; Tala wouldn't understand the meaning of feeling too heated up to lie in bed for any longer. "She went to bed a few minutes after I came down here but I wouldn't know when she went to sleep. Maybe she's not used to getting only a few hours of sleep." He heard Tala scoff quietly, causing Bryan to look up at him blankly, "You know…she's not as bad as you make her out to be."

"Kai trusts her too much and that's how people get hurt."

"But she's not like that, she's nice and caring and it's not like there's any reason to distrust her. Kai has known her for a long time…he wouldn't leave us with her if she wasn't reliable."

"Wouldn't he?" Tala asked, raising an eyebrow. "Face the facts Bryan; Kai ditched us. We've been his friends for _years_, a lot longer than those Bladebreakers and he left us here to stay with some girl and for him to go with children."

"Kai wanted to be with his teammates, there's nothing wrong with that." Why Bryan was trying to defend someone he was mad at was beyond him but he couldn't help himself; defending one of his friends had sort of become second nature as long as he wasn't defending them from his own criticism. "It's not like he's entitled to take care of us…"

"You're right…" Tala smirked, standing up and leaving the room.

Fantastic. Bryan had now officially pissed off all his friends. Despite anything that ever stood in Bryan's way, like lack of emotions, he was still always there for Tala and the redhead was right, Kai had in fact come up short a lot of those times but he always made up for it in the end. Maybe to Bryan things just seemed that way because he no longer wanted to expect much from people. How much could he really expect from anyone? Kai really wasn't entitled to take care of him but he gave him a warm house and bed to stay in, someone to make him nice hot meals and to treat him right and that was more than he really felt like he deserved.

He finished up his breakfast and decided that since he had little left to do, having finished almost all the books they'd bought the day before, he washed the dishes to save the girl some trouble. After all, how difficult could it really be to clean two plates and some cutlery? Vera had already done everything else. He walked back upstairs, taking his sweet time with everything he did. He took a long hot shower, changed into some warm clothing and went out for an earlier walk. As far as he knew Vera would only work till two in the afternoon today and so far too early to ever meet up with her when he was out for his afternoon walk. Memories of his days in that hospital continued to consume him.

_**--Flashback--**_

_Bryan's face creased in pain as he slowly drifted back into a state of blurred consciousness. The sharp, cold breeze of the air from oxygen mask blowing against his face alerted him to the fact that he was still lying in a hospital bed. This fact was later reinforced by the agonizing pain in his skull. He groaned softly, his head lolling to the side as he slowly opened his eyes to a dull room. Through his half lidded eyes and hazy vision, he was able to make out a mess of honey-blonde hair resting against the edge of his bed next to his body. _

_  
"Ver…" he mumbled out weakly, his voice hoarse and muffled by the oxygen mask pressed over his nose and mouth. It was more of a moan than a word, and yet the girl lifted her head off the mattress abruptly, instantly woken by the sound of the boy's voice. She felt Bryan's weak hand flex slightly in her own and she sat up with a start, wide awake and alert. _

_  
"Bryan!" Vera felt tears sting at her eyes as she gripped the hand tightly with both of her own and leant eagerly over the bed. Bryan raised his left hand awkwardly, the drip in his elbow restricting his movements, and slipped the oxygen mask from his face, enabling himself to talk properly._

_  
"Vera…"_

_  
"Ssh, don't talk." She insisted gently as she insistently placed the oxygen mask back over Bryan's face. No words came to her as she stood over the bed, staring silently at Bryan's resting form. His eyes had drifted closed again, but his head leant into Vera's hand, welcoming her warm touch. There was little else he could do; he was freezing, he needed warmth and she was providing, he was weak and she was willing to be supportive. Vera sat down on the edge of the bed and leant back so she was basically lying beside Bryan; arm wrapped around his shoulders. Bryan moved as much as his weak body would allow him so he was resting against her shoulder. Vera didn't care whether or not she was permitted to do this, but she couldn't go another second without reaching out to him. _

_  
"Vera," Bryan said weakly and once again slipped the oxygen mask from his face. He opened his eyes and looked up at the teenage blonde. "You…stayed here? All night?"_

_  
Vera nodded, still stroking Bryan's hair comfortingly. "Of course I did. I wouldn't leave you all alone." She leant down and kissed his forehead. She didn't care about whether he felt comfortable with displays of affection or not but it was just an automatic gesture. He didn't seem to be bothered by it this time. _

_  
"Th-thank you." _

_**--End Flashback--**_

All he remembered was being thankful for that warmth and support that she was providing, even for a short time. Those days in the hospital were the most painful physically. Mentally and emotionally was no better but that little bit that she gave him made things better. When his other teammates were around it was still good for him but it didn't make all that much of a difference. After all, he had been the one that changed, Tala and Kai had remained the same and so would answer him the same way regardless of the way he acted towards them; whether it was the Bryan from the Abbey or the one that had even yet to be formed now. She acted like herself, she was a breath of fresh air because she was different. She was different; not from society but from what he was used to.

She was even kind and giving when it came to the other things. Little things. When you're stuck in a hospital bed with no real place to move to then you sort of start to appreciate the littler things that were available to you in the past. Lucky for him, he wasn't used to many great things but those things that he did learn to love was something he truly missed when lying around and bored.

_**--Flashback--**_

_There was a faint and quiet knock on his hospital room door. He was wondering if he'd heard correctly. It was only 7:30am and his ears were still ringing. Even passing off the sound to being in his head, the door opened a bit and Vera's head popped inside. She smiled softly upon seeing him still awake, "Hey, nurse told me you woke up early." _

"_Yeah." He whispered hoarsely, closing his tired eyes momentarily. "What are you doing here so early?" _

_She held up a plastic bag to him before setting it on the nightstand, "I brought you some tea; Kai said he'd tried to get you some from the machine down the hall but it didn't taste all that good." _

_Bryan smirked, eyes closed again. "That's' sweet," He mumbled, still exhausted, "but you really didn't need to come by so early." _

"_We both seemingly didn't feel like sleeping." She smiled. __"So are you feeling any better, Bryan?" Vera asked politely as she pulled a chair up to the side of the bed._

"_I am actually," He'd replied with a weak smile. "It's amazing how much better you feel once that damn anesthetic starts to get out of your system." _

"_Yeah that stuff's pretty nasty," Vera hummed in agreement and sat back. "I had my wisdom teeth surgically removed when I was a kid and that bloody anesthetic messed me up so much more than the surgery itself did."_

"_At least it's almost out and I'll never need it again." _

"_Hopefully." _

"_I guess at this point I'm sort of desperate to get this hospital stay over with." He'd cut back on the temptation to complain but it was slowly coming undone. _

"_Aww, are you not enjoying being stuck in bed and having nurses give you your icky green jelly lunch and help you walk to the bathroom?" She asked sarcastically, watching the dismay further take over his features. _

"_Not at all." He grumbled, groaning and tugging the sheets higher up his body. _

_She smiled, and in her mind she was pitying the poor thing for being put into this position in the first place. "Well look at you; for the first time ever I actually think you're blushing." Her sentence had just made him groan louder, almost hurting the back of his throat, and burying himself deeper beneath the sheets. "The closer you get to white sheets the more that red on your face shows, sweetheart." She laughed, getting up and sitting on the bed. She waited till his face peeked out from beneath the sheets again before placing a peck on his cheek. "Get some rest. I'm off to work. I didn't give Tala and Kai breakfast this morning; it'd be an incentive for Kai to get out of the house and come and see you." She jumped off the bed and walked over to the door, "Make sure you rest or else you'll be in here for a lot longer and no one wants that." _

_**--End Flashback--**_

He had to admit that she sort of embarrassed him at times but he just thought that it was better to feel something than nothing at all. While embarrassment and humiliation was never something he wanted to feel, mild jokes that she made were definitely ones he chose over the millions of forms of humiliation that Boris had provided him with over the years. He couldn't quite remember them all and he knew he didn't want to remember them, especially now that he had emotions but he knew there was something different about her again. He wasn't even quite sure what made her so different but he assumed that it was that she was the first person he was socially related to that wasn't a past member of the Abbey.

Looking up he'd realized that he'd arrived. Basically his feet had just walked him over to her store without his mind actually factoring in exactly it was that he was doing. He stepped inside; not needing to hesitate like he did the other day. He should've rethought that though as the girl at the counter, filing her nails at that, was certainly not Vera. Looking around; he certainly was in the right place, if there actually was another place like this, it certainly wasn't for a couple of miles. The woman at the counter asked him in quite polite Russian if she could help him with something but at the time his Russian entirely failed him and spoke in English, "I was just looking for Vera."

"She's with a client right now. You can wait for her if you like." Bryan nodded and turned to the chair on the far side of the room, sitting down. The girl took a good look at him, resting her chin in her hand and staring at him for a while, "So are you a friend of hers or something?" she asked, curious.

"Sort of." Bryan answered bluntly.

"Sort of?" She asked, raising her eyebrow at him and then her mouth opening in an 'o', "Oh so you two are more than friends." She smiled wider with realization.

"No!" Bryan shook his head hurriedly, a little alarmed, even at the idea, "No. Nothing like that."

"Then what is it?"

"I just live with her."

She nodded, "You're one of those guys she's living with now then, huh? The ones that landlord guy dumped her with? She told me about the lot of you…Now, are you the nice one or the stubborn annoying one?"

She was a tad blunt in her speech. Bryan thought that maybe she was too blunt and it sounded like Vera hadn't said very pleasant things about them to this girl. "I'm hoping I'm the nice one."

"He _is_ the nice one." Vera insisted from the entrance to the backroom, "Thanks for keeping him company, Dess." She turned to the woman and then to male, "Come on back, Bryan."

He hadn't ever been more glad to get out of some place. Not even the Abbey had that much want. The other girl's dark-brown penetrative glare had practically burnt a hole right through whatever self-esteem he'd seemingly had left since he'd left home that morning.

"So what brings you by this time?" She asked curiously, shutting the door of the office behind him.

"This is bugging you now, right?" He asked hesitantly, turning back to leave.

"No, don't be ridiculous. It's just my bad mood today, that's all; I didn't mean to sound irritated that you've passed by." She pulled him back into the room; taking off his jacket as she did last time and put it by the fire.

Bryan sat down in a chair as she had done, nodding a bit, "That's why I passed by. You were stressed out this morning so I thought I'd see what happened."

"That's sweet but then I'm afraid you've come this far all for nothing. I'm perfectly fine and nothing's happened."

Bryan rolled his eyes, sitting back in the chair and crossing his arms tightly against his chest, "And here I thought only _I_ was allowed to use that sentence and be unsure of what I was saying."

"I'm sorry but really, I'm fine. It's just that stupid time of the month and I get a bit fussy sometimes."

"Time of the month?" Bryan asked confusedly, not knowing what she was talking about at all.

She turned a bit red at his question and so he assumed it was something he shouldn't have asked about. "Just…work it out in your head, four days in a whole month I'll get a bit grumpy and when that happens; you duck, run and hide in your room until those four days are up. You probably don't need to know anymore until…well you get a girlfriend or get married."

Bryan turned a little red in the face, brushing his heated cheek against his shrugging shoulder, "I think I should be sorry I asked but you'll be okay…right?"

"Yeah of course; I'll go have a soak in the hot tub at Kai's place after work and I'll be all better. Don't worry about it; I'm sorry you came all the way down here for nothing."

"It wasn't for nothing; I wanted to walk around a bit anyway. I thought you were going to stay home today though; the weather was terrible, we were almost snowed in at home."

"Yeah but I had a few appointments to get through so I thought I'd come in anyway but I'll take tomorrow off, same with Dessa." She watched him nod a little and continue staring at the floor; she got up and went to the counter to make him a cup of tea, "So how are things at home with Tala and stuff?" she glanced over her shoulder and watched him shrug. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"He really doesn't like you, you know?"

Vera laughed softly, handing him the cup of tea, "Well I don't like him either so we're even."

"I've been surrounded by so much hate all my life; I can't stand more of it."

"I don't _hate_ him, Bryan. I just dislike a lot of things about him, the way he thinks for starters but he's got a reason for it, I'm sure of that and maybe some day I'll understand the reason but till then, I really can't be bothered to be all that nice to him." She reached a hand out to him, lifting his head by his chin and not caring about whether or not it hurt, "Listen to me, okay? I think you and I are friends, but you can't forget about Tala. You've got to remember that even though you're the one who's suffered the most within the past few weeks he may be going through some things too. Talk to him, it's difficult right now but maybe he needs to be talked to as much as you need to."

"And what am I supposed to say?"

"Well I don't know that one! Just talk to him about whatever you want to talk about. Just don't bring me in on the subject because clearly you'd be assured an argument." Her words caused him to turn silent again and now she was beginning to get mad at herself for intimidating him like this, "Go home, try to relax and talk to him a little. I think you two really should clear the air between you."

The young Russian male sighed softly, wiping at his eyes tiredly, "I can't go there and pretend I know how I'm feeling when I'm talking to him."

"Then don't. Just go there and not know how you feel, go there and just react to everything in the first way that comes to mind. It's better than avoiding it." She stood up and took the mug from him, placing it on the desk before picking up his jacket and dragging him over to the door, "Go on, get home and sort this out. I'm not going to have you to ruin a perfectly good friendship just because he's stubborn and silent and you're ashamed of not knowing how you feel."

"No need to push." Bryan protested, speeding up so her hand would stop pressing against his back till he was out the door.

"At least I didn't push you out the door without your jacket." Vera smirked, "Good luck. I'll be home in a few hours."

"Oh joy." Bryan sighed, tightening the jacket tighter to his body before stepping out of the store. He'd never been thrown out of a place before.

Vera continued to smile, crossing her arms and watching him walk down the street, "Argument with your boyfriend?" she heard Dessa ask at the back of the room. The comment made her smile further, then turn back to her.

"He's not my boyfriend for starters." Vera began, walking over to her before sitting up on the counter, "And no, it wasn't an argument; just my way of trying to bring up some of his self-confidence and motivate him to work things out with a friend of his."

The brunette giggled childishly, falling back onto the stool behind the counter, "It's so clearly working." She retorted sarcastically.

While Vera and Dessa continued to bicker over the blonde's way of doing things Bryan was on his way home; speeding up to be able to get home before he caught a cold. His body began to freeze and so he was quite glad when he'd managed to get into the warm house. He tossed his jacket by a heater and went around looking for his redheaded friend. It wasn't all that difficult, Tala was curled up on the far end of the sofa, a large soft blanket draped over him while he lay there and watched TV.

"Tal?" Bryan started hesitantly, sitting on the other end of the sofa.

"Yeah, Bry?"

"Can we talk?"

Tala sighed softly, "Sure." He shut off the TV and turned to lie on his back, tilting his bent legs to the side to be able to look at his friend, "What about?"

"Why are you so quiet lately? You never used to talk much but we always talked more than this…"

"Bryan," Tala exhaled again, speaking in an almost reprimanding tone, "you're a lot more sensitive now and…"

"Yeah but…"

"Let me finish." Tala scolded, glaring and silencing his friend before starting again, "You're a lot more sensitive now and I don't want to say something that might hurt you. I also know that you don't have all that many memories right now; I don't know what you want to know and what you don't and so I don't want to accidentally say something that you'd much rather not know."

"Is it safe for me to talk now?" Bryan asked once Tala paused for too long. The redhead gave him the okay and Bryan began his side of the story, "I'm going to get all my memories back eventually, and there's no stopping them. If you asked about me just a little more often you'd know that memories already began cropping up."

"And?" Tala asked desperately, sitting up quickly.

"And I'm okay so far!"

Tala crawled closer, "I _want_ to be able to help, Bryan. Really. If things were to remain the same or even get worse, I want to be able to help."

Bryan nodded hurriedly, already feeling some sort of relief in having heard that his friend did indeed care about him, "And I want your help. I'm sick and tired of not being able to talk to you."

"Maybe we're just afraid of involuntarily hurting each other."

"We were never afraid of it before…" Bryan admitted softly, turning his body to the side to be able to look at his friend better.

Tala nodded and relaxed against the sofa like his friend did, "I guess it was because you didn't have emotions, I didn't take things so hard and in the Abbey, how could we get hurt anymore than we already did? Back then hurting each other because of something said between us was nothing in comparison to what we used to feel everyday."

"Maybe that really is why we stopped talking." Bryan looked at the saddening look on his best friend's face before Bryan rubbed his temples in a careful motion, "We need to be able to work things out."

"Yeah, we do."

_**A/N: Another chapter. At least last chapter I got three reviews, relatively better so thanks to those who gave honest feedback. Sorry I haven't been able to answer everyone who reviews my writing lately; I have resits starting Monday and I'm nervous. Thanks everyone who read this far! Please leave reviews; they make me happy!**_


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

_**Chapter 5**_

_**--Dream--**_

_Tala groaned as consciousness had invaded his body. With his newfound awareness of his darkened surroundings came a wave of pain washing throughout his slender frame. He felt a small circlet of pressure around his right wrist and he looked up to see that his right arm was chained to the post of the bed he was on with a pair of handcuffs. __He pulled his arm towards himself, experimentally, and cried out in pain as the metal dug even further into his already sliced up wrist._

_He couldn't remember why he was here… or where exactly 'here' was for that matter. That didn't worry him so much as the pain coursing through his veins. He had lived in Biovolt Abbey his entire life; it wasn't uncommon for him to wake up with no memory of the day before because of some drug the scientists had pumped into him. It no longer bothered him. What he did want to know was why he was chained to a bed and why he was in so much burning agony._

_He tried his restraint again and released an involuntary whimper as the cold hard metal cut into his wrist. It didn't seem that he was going anywhere anytime soon._

_He just wished he knew where he was in the least. At least if he knew that he could figure out some way to deal with the situation. He rolled over on to his side and found that was a lot more comfortable since the pain had mostly been resonating from his cut up back. His entire body still hurt, but the pain didn't keep on renewing itself which was somewhat comforting. It at least meant that the pain wasn't entirely permanent. _

_He shivered much further as a small breeze managed to make its way into the room and blow over his naked body. Tala blinked. '__**Naked?'**__ He wondered, then gasped loudly as the memories from the night before hit him in bitter wreckage._

_Tala's entire body began to shake in utter revulsion, the sound of the chain of his wrist hitting the bedpost shakily as his breathing pattern got worse and worse. '__**Rape**__**.'**__ It was a horrible word. Even without knowing the meaning of such a word you could tell that it wasn't a word associated with warm and caring feelings. Tala knew the meaning of the word rape. He knew it all too well._

_He pulled his legs up to his body, ignoring the increasing shooting of pain that anymore movement caused, and hugged himself with his only free arm, despite the stretching of it causing him to whimper with the more pain that began taking him over again. He felt so weak and worthless. He wished he could just die right there and then so he could be spared any further mental torture that he knew would be a part of living for the rest of his life._

_The sound of an opening door called Tala's attention away from his misery and anguish. He stilled his body further, hoping that whoever was there would just leave him alone again. He was actually scared, fear was rushing through his whole body with uncertainty of who was now standing there, beating himself down mentally. Was whoever there staring at him? Did they plan on hurting him further or was it someone who'd want to help? What was going through their heads as they were looking at his naked back? What were they going to do?!_

"_Tala?" The entering figure called softly, closing the door behind himself. When he saw the form of the redhead on the bed his eyes widened. "Oh… Tala…" He cooed a little sympathetically._

_Bryan hissed in empathic pain as his eyes ran over the various cuts and bruises patterning their way across Tala's pale skin, the limbs long limbs tangled in more limbs and some sheets that had been kicked to the foot of the bed. His once pale skin had become alternately red from his own blood or blue-black where the skin had just refused to break._

"_Bryan?" Tala asked without turning around to look at him. __**'Humiliation.' **_

"_Yeah, it's me." Bryan said simply. There were no words that he could possibly say that could make Tala feel any better about himself right now, or to make any of the pain go away. He walked around the bed to crouch in front of the redhead's lying form, ignoring his currently broken and exposed state._

"_Hey." Tala said softly, privately wincing at how much pain that one uncomplicated word had already caused him. Why did he insist on speaking when he knew nothing decent could be said?_

_Bryan, however, saw the flash of pain in Tala's eyes '__**How can he do that to people?'**__ He thought, enraged at the thought of what Boris had done to the teen in front of him. Especially how it shouldn't have been Tala. '__**It should have been me. I was the one Boris had. Why'd he come back for me?'**_

_It wasn't the first time that someone in the Abbey had gotten raped. It happened to someone at least twice a week. It had just never happened to Tala before; he was one of the fortunate ones that always got away unscathed. Somehow he'd always missed it. He had a sort of innocence about him and Boris had never had the chance to take it from him. Until now. '__**When he'd helped me.'**_

"_Bryan?" Tala asked quietly, worried that he hadn't replied yet. __**'Worry.' **_

"_I'm here." Bryan reached a hand out and placed it on the abused wrist which was still held close to the bedpost._

"_Good."_

_Bryan nodded and got back up, beginning to look around for the keys to free Tala from the bed he had been chained to. He located the key in the nightstand out of Tala's reach and quickly unlocked the handcuffs._

_Tala whimpered quietly as he pulled his hand toward his torso, closing his eyes and allowing himself to feel and experience this new agony that had been now bestowed upon him for the first time. It felt like his arm would fall off, it was numb and lifeless, his fingers were so cold and he didn't know why he couldn't move them properly. The blood had stopped going to his hand because of the tight restraint, his hand was red and blue, not from blood or bruises but this time from the lack of blood it got. The only way to move his fingers was if he used his other hand to move them at all._

_A calloused hand touching him gently on the side of his face called his attention back to the present, tearing him away from all that thoughts of each action performed on his body the night before. He opened his eyes fearfully before relaxing slightly, his chest expanding and releasing in a deep breath when he saw that the hand belonged to Bryan._

"_We have to go." He was told, gently, the lavender eyes of the speaker holding depths of compassion that Tala could not even comprehend. Tala nodded slowly and painfully, not trusting his voice to be able to force out a proper reply._

_Bryan looked around trying to find where Tala's clothes had disappeared to. He found them in a messy pile beside the bed like they had been hastily removed. They probably __had__ been actually. He picked them up and turned to the redhead to give them to him. "Do you want me to help you or do you want to do it yourself?" He inquired quietly. __**'Concern. That's all it is; concern.' **_

"_I'm fine." Tala told him, pulling himself up to sit on the side of the bed and biting back the yell of pain the position sent up his back. He reached for the clothes Bryan was holding out and began to slowly and painfully dress himself._

_Bryan waited patiently, looking away but occasionally checking him out of the corner of his eye. He knew what Tala was going through. Dressing himself was the one and only way that he could prove to himself that he wasn't useless. It was a way of proving that, despite what he had been through, he could still function like everyone else._

_When Tala had finished he was standing, unsteadily maybe but in the least he was upright. He tried to take a step away from the bed but instead began to fall forward, feeling uneasy. Bryan caught him without difficulty in one arm and held him, comforting him in the only way he could… "I'm so sorry, Tala." He whispered softly, helping the teen back up to stand on his own feet._

_Tala nodded in acceptance of the apology, holding onto his friend's forearms. "I know. There's nothing you could have done though."_

"_**What do you mean, Tala? I could have done something and I didn't. **__**You **__**managed to save me. Why couldn't I do the same?"**__ Bryan stopped what he was saying. He was feeling sorry for __**himself**__. He couldn't. Especially not in front of Tala. The redhead remained silent and tried to take another step. This time Bryan was ready for him and caught him once again as he fell. He slung one of Tala's arms over his shoulder and hugged him to his side, supporting him that way. "I'll never let something like this happen to you again, Tala. I promise. He can't get away with this. I won't let him."_

_**--End Dream--**_

Bryan awoke with a violent start, chest heaving, the sound of loud gasps filling the living room. He leaned to the side, his hand gripping the coffee table and coughing. He fell back against the sofa after a while, looking around the dark room. It was about 4am as he could tell by looking out the opposite window.

It wasn't the dream as such that had panicked him but those things he'd learnt from it. It was a memory, that much he knew for sure. It wasn't a mere dream, it was something that had happened in his past, he was certain. Questions began dawning on him; Was there a time in the Abbey when he had emotions? Why hadn't Tala told him that he had emotions in the time they knew each other? Were they both raped? By Boris? He continued to look around him desperately, as though hoping the answers were visible in his surroundings.

He was toasty warm; after he'd fallen asleep someone had dragged a heater closer to the sofa. He couldn't even remember what time he fell asleep, maybe around five in the afternoon. He really must've been tired if he slept that long, and on this back-breaking sofa no less. Whoever had been kind enough to pull the heater closer to him had put a few more blankets over him too. The bottom one was the one that Tala had been using, the rest he hadn't even seen before. Despite the discomfort that the sofa caused, he didn't have the strength to go upstairs to bed. He rolled around on the couch a bit more, trying to calm his over-worked mind so that he could go back to sleep. It took another hour, and the sun was rising outside but he finally fell asleep again.

He was terrified of sleeping again. He was scared out of his mind but he didn't care, he wanted to sleep longer. He needed sleep, he was still safe in his sleep and maybe he could learn a little more about himself. At least now he had his dear friend. Now he wasn't alone. Now people would help him if he just found out what he needed help with.

_**--Next Morning--**_

The room was still dark when he woke up and the kind heat that had been surrounding him the night before was still one he was blessed with. He tossed around on the sofa, trying to make sense of everything around him. He was entirely lost in his own warped mind. He reached out and pushed the heater away from himself, getting up and walking to the kitchen, wrapping a blanket over his shoulders. There was no one in the kitchen so he went upstairs to his bedroom, opting to cool off with a long cold shower. The whole house was freezing, especially his bedroom and bathroom which hadn't had the heater on for over twenty-four hours.

He was shivering upon leaving the bathroom, lying down on his bed and crawling beneath the sheets to think properly about the dreams he'd experienced the night before. The only real thing he could do was go over the questions that he'd already asked himself. It wasn't making things any better but he thought that if he repeated the questions to himself enough times then maybe they'd sink in and he'd learn something.

There was a gentle fist tapping at his bedroom door and he turned his attention to it when it slid open, "Hey," he greeted his redheaded friend.

"Hey, why are you back in bed? You didn't sleep well?"

Bryan exhaled softly, turning his head to look out of the window that he'd covered with the blinds and curtains, "I don't know yet."

"Something you want to talk about?" Tala asked, stepping further into the bedroom.

"It depends," Bryan admitted as he sat up and leant back against the headboard, "will you be honest with me?"

"Of course I will."

Bryan took a deep breath and looked up at his dear friend. Some part of him deep inside hoped that the boy would be more honest with him if he could see how serious he was about everything he was going to ask. He wanted answers. He was desperate for answers. "Did I have emotions in the Abbey? Even for a little while?"

Tala nodded shakily, "Yeah; your first three years at the Abbey, then for about a year when you were thirteen."

"Why can't I remember that?" Bryan asked himself quietly.

"Is it really important?" Tala asked curiously, "I mean, you know now at least. Would it make any difference to the way you acted if you knew about it sooner?"

Bryan shrugged, glancing out the window, "I don't know but it would've been good if I knew. Maybe it would've made things easier or…I don't know, comforting because it means I'm not completely unused to them."

"I had told you that you wouldn't be unused to them…maybe I just wasn't specific as to why."

"You should've said something." Bryan sighed, aching audible in his tone. "And was I raped? Were you too?"

"Bryan," Tala reprimanded quietly.

Bryan cut his lecture off quickly, "I want to know and you said you'd tell me and be honest about it."

"I know but…"

"I want to know." The youngest continued stubbornly, even more persistent in his tone than earlier. "Can you just tell me, please? I'd rather know for sure than to just think that it could or couldn't have happened. I'm confused enough as it is; can't I at least _know_ my past?"

Tala nodded and for a while Bryan wasn't sure if it was an answer to his present question or to his past one. "Yeah, we were both raped in the Abbey." And apparently it was the answer to both. Tala shied closer to Bryan, bringing the attention of the youngest back to him, "How'd you remember?"

"It was a dream." Bryan replied, just a little uncertain. He figured that if it was a memory, then 'dream' probably wasn't even the right word yet he was clueless as to what else he could call it. "It happened to me more than it did to you, right?"

Tala nodded again; he was never able to bring himself to reply right away. This was all such a touchy subject and it was probably the reason that he didn't want to talk to Bryan about all this in the first place. "It happened to you at least twenty times, those are just the times I know about. You kept it to yourself a lot."

"And you?"

"Four times." Tala whispered, uncertainty of his own. He looked up, a bit more confidently as he reached a hand out to Bryan and tried to lift his head to look at him, "Look Bry; the night it first happened to me, you and I made a promise."

Bryan's eyebrows furrowed; had they made a promise? Why couldn't he remember that? "What promise?"

"We promised that we wouldn't let it stand in our way. We told each other that as long as we dealt with it together then in no way would we let it put us down in the future once that part of our lives was done with. Maybe at the time we were kidding ourselves thinking that we were ever going to get out of there alive but we did, and a promise is a promise." Bryan had long glanced out his window again, clearly being unable to wrap his mind around the fact that he'd technically made a promise to be okay. "That same night…we sort of joked that if ever given the chance to not remember it then we would take it. It's the reason why I didn't say anything about it sooner in case you were wondering."

"Sorry." Bryan whispered finally.

Tala smirked weakly, "And why are you sorry?" the humor ringing in his voice.

"Because I brought it up…and I shouldn't have doubted the reason you kept that from me."

"In the Abbey we trusted each other because there wasn't much we could do to turn our backs on. Out here…maybe it's easy to start doubting the intentions of those you used to trust."

"I still trust you though."

Tala smirked and moved closer, attempting to embrace his friend carefully, "I know, don't worry."

Bryan embraced Tala back, basking in the gentle warmth that his friend always provided him with regardless of the situation he was in. He didn't want his next statement to hurt his friend but he was scared that if he didn't say it then it'd be worse in the future. "The dream I had last night…"

"What about it?"

"It was about the first time the rape happened to you…not me." As the words left his lips quietly he could feel the older blader's body tense up drastically, then the expanding of his chest as he took a deep breath.

"I had the same dream last night." Tala stated as he pulled away.

"You're not mad?" Bryan asked.

Tala raised both eyebrows at him, tilting his head a bit in confusion, "Mad about what?"

"I don't know…that it was yours and not mine, that it wasn't my own that I re-experienced."

"You think I should be mad at you because you woke up from a nightmare and you're _not_ miserable?" Tala smirked at the end of the question, watching Bryan turn a bit red in the face, "Come on Bry, I'm not that cold." He got off the bed, still smirking down at his friend, taking advantage of the fact that the younger couldn't see it. "I think I'm going to go for a walk. Care to join me?"

"I think I'm going to stay in today." Bryan replied, diffidently, still keeping quiet. He turned to look at his friend, smiling and adding, "Thanks though."

"Alright; Vera's in the basement if you need her and I'll be back soon."

Silence dawned upon the room again, mostly because he couldn't bring himself to say anything else and thus let his friend leave. He could no longer stand that sort of silence. It was haunting. It was making the moments more unbearable. So much was left unanswered that the silence only left room to be filled with answers. No answers came though. They weren't just going to appear to him. As much as he'd like them too. Unfortunately he supposed that he was going to have to work at them again to get any answers to all the questions that abused his mind now.

He hurried his way back out of bed, hurrying down the stairs. The basement's stairs were in the kitchen, the whole basement was practically all wood. There was a hot tub on the far end of the room but it didn't seem like there was anyone in there. "Vera…"

"Yeah?"

The sound of trickling water could be heard and he looked in the direction of the hot tub again. She was sitting up in it, soaked and wiping the hair off her face. Her cheeks were red, signifying she had in fact been under the water since he'd arrived there. "What are you doing in there?"

"Trying to relax." She sighed, sitting back. "What do you need?"

"My memories are coming back really quickly."

"You should be talking to Tala about this and not me."

Bryan rolled his eyes, sighing and sitting down on the bottom step, "You want me to tell you that you were right. Is that it? Is that what it'll take for you to listen to me? Well you _were_ right; I fixed things with Tala just in time. If I hadn't fixed things with him when I did then this morning I wouldn't have been able to get some of the answers that I needed."

Vera smirked, brushing her hair back before slipping deeper into the water, "I love to hear about how right I am."

"But you're not completely right." Bryan added sternly, trying to muster up the strongest tone he could. "You think that if you keep trying to push me away then you're going to send me running right back to Tala every single time. If you don't want me to talk to you then just tell me that and if you're just doing it so that I can run to Tala then don't bother, because there are just some things I _can't_ and don't _want_ to run to him with."

He'd just turned to run back up the stairs but Vera continued to smirk after his little lecture. "At least your perception is getting _a little_ better." She leaned forward against the side of the hot tub built into the floor, and she smiled further when he turned back around. "I do like talking to you; and I do appreciate that you value my view on things to some extent, otherwise you wouldn't talk to me about it but I don't want you to lose your friendship with Tala."

"I'm not going to lose it." Bryan bit out confidently.

Vera continued to smirk and nodded at his insistence, gesturing to a space on the floor beside the little pool of hot water she was in, "So, by all means, come and tell me about these memories you're getting back." She watched him just stand there, hesitant and unsure if she really meant what she said. "Don't just stand there, hurry up. You wanted to talk about these memories, so talk now."

Bryan sat down about three meters away from her, pulling his legs tightly to his body. "Do you think that everyone gets what they deserve?"

That smirk pulled at the girls lips again, small but still there, "If you're asking me if I think people deserve to get hurt, then I don't. I do believe, however, that people who live their lives with the desire to hurt or kill some other human being, an innocent human being at that then yeah, I do believe they should get what they deserve. I'm not for capital punishment but they should know what they did, they should get some sort of punishment for the lives they've destroyed."

"So I didn't deserve to get hurt?"

"You were a little kid, a baby; there's no bad deed on earth that would be bad enough to deserve punishment. No matter what that punishment was; pain is not something you should feel at an age like that."

Bryan listened intently; to him, someone so inexperienced in life itself, listened to the life lessons diligently in hopes that they will help him in the future. Something else dawned on him and Vera didn't seem all too bothered by his questions, giving him the right incentive to continue his question-asking. "Can I ask…What was your childhood like?"

"I didn't live in a big house, I wasn't rich and I didn't even have a father. Just me and my mother living in that small house at the back of the property here. It wasn't the perfect childhood and it was difficult sometimes but I was happy."

"I'm glad."

Vera laughed, turning to him, "You're glad?"

"Yeah, I'm glad you were happy."

She leaned forward against the side again, remaining at eyelevel with him, the water still up to her collarbones. "Bryan," she began quietly, "What's this about?"

"I don't know; I just felt the need to ask." He replied with pure honesty, avoiding eye contact with her.

"You're going to crush yourself under all this pressure." She exhaled, turning away from him for another time.

Bryan glanced up at her as she'd turned away from him, thoroughly confused by her words, "Pardon?" he asked politely.

"I'm just saying that you're stressing yourself by thinking so…negatively." He had gone silent again behind her and she simply assumed that he still didn't understand her properly. "Look at things like this; you made the decision to take the surgery, get your emotions back and start a proper life with positive thoughts in mind. You knew that deep down you had the strength to handle this, you thought positively and that's what got you to make such good decisions in what you wanted to do with your life. Now, you're letting things that happened in a past you can barely remember, influence your thoughts and decisions. You're over-thinking everything to the point that it's got to be unhealthy and thus, you're going to crush yourself under the weight of all your past problems; problems that you may have already dealt with in a past that, as I said, you can't remember."

"So I think too much?"

"Definitely. You need to learn how to relax; how to try to forget about those things in the past. Don't let them effect you now; let them continue to make you a great person but don't let them put you down and stop you from enjoying life."


End file.
